The Perfect Relationship

Chapter 100: Not the First Time

Shao Junling chose to live in the San Francisco L university student dorms with his roommate He Hongjun instead of renting a house off campus like the other wealthy students. These dorms were shared by four or five people. Each student had their own room, and shared bathrooms, kitchen, and study rooms. He Hongjun lived next door to Shao Junling.

Within the first ten days since Shao Junling arrived, he completed all the necessary procedures and started attending classes. His self-disciplined and meticulously planned lifestyle made it easy for him to adapt to the new environment without feeling too much pressure.

He exercised in the morning, then studied, and checked the chatbot AI cloud for any new records it collected that day. His peaceful face occasionally showed a faint smile when he was browsing through the information, and those who knew Shao Junling before would not believe that this normally serious boy could have such a gentle expression.

But suddenly, Shao Junling's expression changed as he read something on the screen, and before he could respond to a knock on his door, He Hongjun pushed the door open.

"Shao Junling, want to go eat?" He Hongjun asked. He saw that Shao Junling was sitting in front of his computer, leaning back in his chair and staring at an invisible point on the wall.

"Huh, what's wrong?" He Hongjun knew Shao Junling well and recognized that the boy had a habit of staring like that when he was deep in thought.

"Nothing," Shao Junling quickly regained his composure, closed the lid on his sparkling water bottle, grabbed his jacket, and started to leave. "Let's go eat first."

As they walked, He Hongjun talked about some professional topics and mentioned that there was a party at a Spanish bar near the school that weekend, organized by the freshman club. Shao Junling seemed to be out of it the entire time.

"Hey, Shao Junling, what are you thinking about?" He Hongjun asked irritably and hit him on the arm.

"Oh, nothing," Shao Junling replied absentmindedly, but he had heard every word.

"School just started, what could you be busy with?" He Hongjun was confused, "Are you making something for your brother again?"

"Yes," Shao Junling did not deny it.

"......" He Hongjun was speechless. Shao Junling furrowed his brow, "But you won't be able to help this time."

"Who said I wanted to help you!" He Hongjun protested.

After just a week, the news of the AI that Shao Junling gave to his brother spread throughout the entire set.

The director walked into the makeup room and asked, "Yinchang, I heard your brother gave you an AI?"

Yinchang didn't know how the news got out, but it wasn't from Mi Xiu. Yinchang had heard the other people at the dinner table talk about "Xiaoling" before, but they didn't know exactly what the egg did, just that it called Yinchang "big brother."

Moreover, Yinchang was apparently known to be obsessed with his younger brother by everyone in the entertainment industry, and now that he carried the "egg" around with him all the time, it had become a topic of conversation on set.

"Where's the AI?" The director asked eagerly.

The girl doing Yinchang's makeup pointed to the table and said with a smile, "Director Wu, why are you looking at it like that? It's right here."

The director stared at the egg-shaped object with surprise and asked, "Is this an AI?"

People who had never seen AI always had special expectations of it. Yinchang had no choice but to demonstrate Xiaoling's ability to call him "big brother" in front of the director. The director was satisfied, "Interesting, interesting."

Just then, a worker rushed in and said, "Director Wu, there's trouble!"

"What's wrong?" The director frowned.

"Professor Shi just fell off a horse and it might be serious!" The worker said anxiously.

The director's face changed, "Shi Jiande?"

Not only the director, but everyone in the makeup room was alarmed. Shi Jiande was the actor who played Cao Cao.  He was almost fifty years old, had excellent acting skills, and was a veteran respected by everyone on set.  The first half of "China Power Struggle" was set around Cao Cao and the relationship between the Han dynasty. Undeniably, his role was extremely important.

The director followed the worker outside, and Yinchang anxiously followed. They were shooting a scene today where Cao Cao led his army to fight in the north and south, and if Shi Jiande was injured, they couldn't film.

Half an hour later, the workers returned to the makeup room and told them that Shi Jiande had broken a bone and that today's filming was cancelled. Everyone realized that this was not something that could be resolved in one or two days. If it was only a minor injury, they could wait for Shi Jiande to rest for a few days and adjust the shooting sequence. However, with this injury, it would take at least a hundred days to recover.

"We're done, we're done. We have to replace the actor," someone said worriedly.

"But who can we find who has such a long schedule and excellent acting skills like Professor Shi?" someone else asked.

“Maybe we should move up the scenes after Cao Cao’s death.”

As the crew members chattered beside him, Yin Chang’s heart was racing. The major scenes after Cao Cao’s death were all him, and Cao Pi’s external image and internal emotions were completely different during his time as a Military Officer of the Fifth Rank and later as Emperor of Wei.

Yin Chang had already figured out the scenes from Cao Pi’s youth, but adjusting his mindset in a short amount of time was no easy task.

In the afternoon, the crew held an emergency meeting. Finally, the decision was made to find a new actor to play Cao Cao and prepare for the next stage of the production. But before that, to minimize losses, the director asked Yin Chang and others to finish the remaining scenes without Cao Cao.

Due to this unexpected event, many actors were forced to take a break and Yin Chang’s daily shooting amount was greatly reduced. However, the increase in rest time could not relieve the mental pressure and exhaustion he felt from several days of insomnia.

That evening, Lu Lingjuan bought some kiwi and brought it to Yin Chang’s room. She had a key card to his room and knocked on the door but heard no response. She swiped her key card and came in.

"I'm coming in." Lu Lingjuan stood at the door and greeted, but heard no response. She walked in and saw Yin Chang lying weakly on the bed, massaging his temples.

"Juanjuan?" He opened his eyes slightly, speaking softly. He wasn't ignoring Lu Lingjuan, he just didn't have the energy to respond.

Lu Lingjuan was startled. "Are you okay?"

Yin Chang tried to sit up. "Just a little headache."

Lu Lingjuan said quickly, "Don't get up, just lie down."

Yin Chang stopped struggling, and Lu Lingjuan went to the bathroom to get a warm towel, "Is it because of the insomnia?"

She knew about Yin Chang's recent problem, so she bought him kiwi because she heard it helped with sleep.

"I'm not sure, it could be a side effect of the sleeping pills..." Yin Chang put the towel on his forehead, feeling a little more comfortable.

"Can you hold on?" Lu Lingjuan worried.

Yin Chang smiled weakly. "Sis, I'm only twenty-five, don't make me sound like I'm fifty-two."

Lu Lingjuan glared at him. Because he was only twenty-five, Yin Chang could still bear it. However, she, in her thirties, knew all too well the damage that sleep deprivation and staying up could do to a person's body. In her younger days, she was fearless and confident, but if she stayed up all night now, she would have an elevated heart rate and feel like she was dead when she finally fell asleep.

"You can't go on like this... This drama will take eight months to film. How can you endure it with insomnia every day?"

"...I know."

In fact, Yin Chang hadn't thought the problem was this serious. When Mi Xiu told him on WeChat that he was screwed, Yin Chang thought he was exaggerating. Wasn't it just a habit? After a while, everything would be fine again. Before Shao Junling appeared in his life, he slept well every day, even without him. That was what Yin Chang thought, and he was proven completely wrong by the cruel reality after Shao Junling left.

After half a month on set, his quality of sleep had steadily decreased, and even with three tablets of melatonin before bed, he couldn't sleep. He had Lu Lingjuan get him some sleeping pills, which he tried for the first time three days ago. He finally fell asleep that night, but the next day he started having migraines.

Yin Chang finally admitted that Mi Xiu was right.

After finishing filming for the day and returning to his room in the evening, Yin Chang was lying on the bed lost in thought. He remembered that ever since the plane crash involving Yin Dong, he had often had trouble sleeping. This symptom worsened when he found out that he might not be Yin Dong's biological son and that Yin Dong had a secret child. Sleeping troubles continued until he brought Shao Junling home, because even though he didn't like Shao Junling much at first, he felt that this child was just as alone and similarly connected to himself.

Later, when Shao Junling's future came into question, Yin Chang realized that his little brother would eventually leave him, and it was time for him to leave. When Yin Chang realized this, he seemed to fall back into the same sense of loneliness he felt when his father abandoned him, which made him anxious and restless.

However, these were not the main reasons for Yin Chang's troubled state of mind.

The main reason was what Shao Junling did to him in the car on the day he went to the airport...

The night Mi Xiu came to his room to play AI, they not only talked about insomnia but also about the kissing incident with Shao Junling.

"He kissed you on the mouth??" Mi Xiu's jaw dropped.

"Mm," Yin Chang smiled bitterly, "and he even said, 'kiss me again before I leave'." 

"Is this the first time he's kissed you?" Mi Xiu asked.

"No, many years ago, when he got up early to go running, I grabbed him and said 'kiss before you go'... I was half asleep and I wanted to kiss his forehead. Later when he came back from his run and saw me asleep, he kissed me..."

"..."

"Anyway," Yin Chang coughed, "I thought he was too young at the time and didn't really think anything of it. But now, he's seventeen. He's not the type of person to make these kinds of jokes. I'm thinking that maybe I gave him some wrong guidance in the past, and that's why he has some...extraordinary feelings towards me."